Lion of the Sun wor-3

by Harry Sidebottom

  From somewhere — disciplina? The hand of a god? Hercules himself? — the Romans found the strength to resist. Digging their heels in the ground, bending their knees, calling out to each other, they pushed their shields into the backs of those in front. The line held. The German wedges were halted.

  Except for one out on the Roman right, where there had been no caltrops. Tipped by a gigantic warrior, his sword slicing intricate patterns, the one boar's snout edged forward.

  Gallienus snapped orders. One unit of his cavalry reserve cantered forward. The men dismounted. Leaving one in five to hold the horses, the armoured troopers added their weight to the threatened point. Four hundred fresh men made the difference. Here too the line held. For the moment.

  Blinking from the dust, Gallienus took stock. The cavalry on the left were still holding out but, on the right, the Romans were losing ground fast. A clear gap had opened between this cavalry action and the infantry combat. The feigned retreat had worked. It was time.

  There were only fifteen hundred horsemen still in his reserve. Gallienus was not worried. His plan was working. It was time.

  Gallienus unsheathed his sword. His palm was wet. His heart was pounding. It was not fear. There was nothing to fear. The god was with him. Like Antony long ago in Alexandria, he would know if Hercules left him. The emperor signalled the advance.

  They set off at a walk. With disciplined ease, they changed formation on the move. What emerged would have impressed anyone. Two solid wedges of armoured men on armoured horses. The smaller, some five hundred men, was led by Aureolus, and rode under the red Pegasus on white banner of the Horse Guards. The larger, some thousand men, followed the imperial purple draco. At their apex was the emperor himself.

  Without waiting for an order from the emperor, Aureolus angled his horsemen towards the cavalry melee on the right wing. Gallienus approved. The protectores should show initiative, and none more so than the protector appointed Prefect of Cavalry. The emperor watched as Aureolus quickened the pace. The big horses went from a trot to a gentle canter. They moved easily, making little of the weight of man and armour on their backs. A noble cloud of dust rose behind them.

  Gallienus led his men towards the gap between the central infantry fight and the mounted one on the right. He kept to a slow walk, fighting down an urge to hurry. He needed to keep his troop together.

  A previously unseen ditch appeared in front of Gallienus. Manoeuvring on a battlefield, there was always something. A ditch, a line of vines, a dry-stone wall — an unexpected obstacle always appeared.

  The ditch was not too deep, its bottom dry. Gallienus leant back, letting his mount pick its way down, then forward as they climbed out. A few paces across on the far bank, he pulled up, giving the men behind him a chance to sort themselves out.

  Gallienus looked to his right. The Pegasus banner streaming above them, Aureolus's troopers were forging into the confused melee. The men under Claudius and Aurelian seemed to have taken heart and were also pressing the enemy. One or two of the Alamanni had had enough. They were spurring their mounts away south across the plain. On that part of the battlefield the tide had turned.

  To Gallienus's left, things were not going so well. In the manmade gloom, the thin, thin line of Roman infantry was being forced back. In places it had buckled dangerously. It could not be long before it broke. Now there was no time to lose, no time to fuss over parade-ground cohesion.

  Gallienus kicked on, quickly coming to a near flat-out gallop. His men followed. The hooves of a thousand horses rattled on the hard ground as they surged past the cavalry fight on their right. Gallienus led them in a sweeping curve to the left that brought them to about two hundred paces behind the left rear of the German foot.

  Now! Strike now! I am with you. The god whispered urgently in Gallienus's heart. No! Not yet. Not like this. Not with the troopers strung out like the trail of a meteor. Hercules had always been hasty. Too hasty when he had sacked sacred Delphi. Too hasty when he had hurled his guest Iphitus to his death from the highest tower in Tiryns. Gallienus, the emperor, who suspected that, one day, he would be a god, stood up to the god who had once been mortal. There was only one throw of the dice. This charge had to break the heart of the enemy, had to rout their infantry beyond recall. Gallienus could feel Hercules' barely suppressed anger, but also his acquiescence. The god still held his hands over the emperor.

  Gently, Gallienus brought his mount to a standstill. Horses snorting and stamping, weapons and armour ringing, officers shouting, the troop reined in and got itself back into order.

  The warriors in the rear ranks of the Alamanni infantry were more than aware of Gallienus's men. They looked over their shoulders, pointed, gesticulated. Some turned to face the new threat. Others shouted to their war-leaders. If any of the latter heard, caught up in the business of staying alive at the front of the fight, there was nothing they could do.

  'Now!' Gallienus spoke as much to his god as to the men behind him. The bucinatores blew the charge. The brassy notes sliced through the din of battle. The now close-ordered arrowhead of armoured horsemen set off. The purple draco writhed and snapped over them as they picked up the pace. The ground seemed to tremble beneath them.

  A cavalry charge against infantry was a bluff. It was not so much that, once launched, it was almost impossible to stop, it was more that it surrendered the outcome to the other side. Horses do not run into solid objects. A line of men, shoulder to shoulder, two, three or more deep, was a solid object. One or two horses might be goaded or maddened enough to crash into it, but not several hundred of them. Unless the infantry ran, or at least were scared enough to flinch away, for gaps to open in their formation, the horses would pull up short. The magnificent charge would end up as a chaotic stationary mass; horses wheeling and plunging, riders thrown.

  At least, thought Gallienus, as the Horse Guard thundered on, we do not have to cross our own caltrops to get at the nearest enemy. Not to have the right of the Roman infantry line throw caltrops had been a last-moment decision. Memor had pointed it out. The African protector would go far.

  The rear ranks of the Alamanni began to swarm like a disturbed wasps' nest. Some warriors who had turned to face the new menace were hefting their shields, standing firm, but others were trying to edge back into the illusory safety of their comrades. A handful had lost their nerve altogether; small groups and lone men were running away to the south-east. Gallienus felt the blood pounding in his head, sensed Hercules beside him. This was going to work.

  The emperor aimed at a hole in the line. His charger bowled over an isolated German. The warrior tumbled to the ground, then vanished behind, under the hooves of the Roman cavalry.

  A big warrior aimed a cut at Gallienus. The emperor caught the blow on his blade. He rolled his wrist, forcing his opponent's sword wide. He slashed downwards, but missed.

  The protectores were trying to catch up and cover their emperor, but Gallienus surged ahead. Sunshine flashing on his blade, he swung left and right. He felt no fear. The god had covered him in his lionskin. The pelt of the Nemean lion was proof against iron, bronze, stone. There was no need for fear.

  Three mounted Alamanni appeared out of nowhere, one ahead, one on either side, murder in their eyes. Heraclian, the commander of the Equites Singulares, drove his horse between the emperor and the German to his right. A blow caught him on the helmet. The protector was knocked forward on to his horse's neck. The German drew back his arm for the killing blow. Ignoring the other two enemy, Gallienus leant far out of his saddle, putting all his weight behind the blow. As the impact ran up his arm, Gallienus saw the warrior's helmet buckle. The blood sprayed hot up his arm, into his face.

  With god-granted time, Gallienus regained his seat, blocked the slash of the warrior on his left. The German's bearded face twisted in agony as Camsisoleus drove his sword through the mail between his shoulderblades.

  The third of the Alamanni had vanished. The immediate threat gone, his protectores arou
nd him, Gallienus looked about. Everything had changed. Where there had been battle, now there was rout. Where there had been fighting, now there was only killing. The Alamanni were broken; a mob of individuals fleeing for their lives.

  'Horse Guards stay with me,' Gallienus shouted.

  The Germans seldom employed a reserve, but Gallienus knew that many a battle had been lost by an overconfident pursuit. The protectores got most of the cavalrymen who followed the emperor back in hand. No one and nothing was going to snatch this victory away from Gallienus.

  'Imperator! Imperator!' Fierce faces roared out the traditional acclamation. In the levity of victory, men clasped Gallienus's hand, thumped him on the back. 'Imperator! Imperator!'

  Volusianus rode up: 'I give you joy of your victory, Dominus.' Gallienus smiled and shook the veteran's hand.

  Aurelian galloped up: 'Claudius is chasing their horsemen on our flank. He will keep our boys in order.' More hugs and handshakes.

  Theodotus came to report from the left: 'Acilius Glabrio has hared off after them, but I have a couple of hundred troopers held back.' Yet more rejoicing.

  Gallienus felt the exhilaration begin to drain out of him. He heard soft music on the air. The god was leaving. Not for ever, merely withdrawing. Hercules would return to stand with the emperor again. Gallienus looked at his sword. It was slick with blood, right up to the eagle pommel. He sheathed it anyway. Someone else would clean it later. Gallienus noticed his hands were shaking.

  Flanked by two of the protectores, a mounted man was led forward. Dressed in travelling clothes stained with sweat, neither very old nor young, the man was familiar to Gallienus, but he could not place him at once. At odds with the surrounding relaxed discipline of success, the man snapped a formal salute. He dismounted and performed proskynesis full length in the dirt. When he got up, Gallienus recognized him.

  'Valens, you are a long way from the east.' As he spoke, Gallienus realized something had gone terribly wrong. The governor of Syria Coele should not be here.

  'Dominus…' Valens stopped.

  Gallienus could feel the tension mounting inside him.

  Valens took a deep breath and let the words out. 'Dominus, the Augustus Valerian has been defeated. I am sorry to tell you your father is a prisoner of the Persians.'

  A ripple of silence spread outward. In the distance, shouts, screams, snatches of songs, the sounds of victory. Here the silence of shock. In the emptiness, half-formed thoughts raced through Gallienus's mind. Father… too old, too infirm for this. Hercules help me. What should I say? What would an emperor say? What would a Roman of the old republic say? The phrase came fully formed.

  'I knew my father was mortal.'

  Grim-faced, the officers nodded. The phrase had been good. It had the right gravitas. Gallienus gathered himself.

  'How stands the imperium?'

  Relieved, Valens spoke a little more normally. 'Carrhae and Nisibis have gone over to the Sassanids. The people of Carrhae opened their gates. At Nisibis, they say a thunderbolt split the walls.' Valens shrugged. 'Whatever, Edessa still held when I left. Shapur had not advanced further.' Valens still looked on edge.

  'Who was captured with my father?'

  'It is thought some ten thousand men. Many of the high command: Successianus the Praetorian Prefect, Cledonius the ab Admissionibus, Ballista…'

  'No!' Aurelian shouted out. Red-faced, he punched his saddle. His horse flinched.

  Gallienus remembered the close friendship between Aurelian and the young northerner. 'We will all have lost amici.'

  'Dominus,' Valens continued, 'there is more.'

  'Speak.'

  'When the news reached the Danube, Ingenuus had your portraits and those of your father and son torn from the standards. His men have invested him with the purple.'

  A babble of voices rose up in indignation. Gallienus held up his hand for quiet. Valens had not finished.

  'On the Euphrates, Macrianus the Lame has taken command of what remains of the field army. He has claimed maius imperium over the east. He has had Exiguus, the governor of Cappadocia, killed. He is appointing his own men to commands. When I fled Syria, it was openly said he would put his sons, Macrianus the Younger and Quietus, on the throne.'

  Treachery, revolt, civil war — would it never end? A time of iron and rust. This was not a moment to show weakness. Gallienus knew he had to be decisive.

  'When we have killed and enslaved the last of these Alamanni, we will send troops to the Caesar Saloninus on the Rhine. He has good, loyal men around him. Silvanus and Postumus will help him hunt down the Franks in Gaul. We ourselves will march without delay against Ingenuus. When his head is on a pike, we can deal with the cripple in the east.'

  Gallienus forced himself to smile. 'The imperium was not won without bitter strife. It will not be held by the faint-hearted. No one has defeated us. We will triumph over these rebels as we have triumphed over these Alamanni.' The emperor raised his voice, made it ring. 'Today we won a heroic victory. Tonight we will hold a heroic feast. We will distribute the booty and then drink until the sun is back in the sky, until the wine peeps through our scars.'

  As the protectores and others close enough to hear his words cheered, Gallienus's thoughts flew to the east. Shapur at the head of the Sassanid horde. Macrianus the Lame commanding the Roman forces. And between them, holding the balance, was Odenathus, the Lord of Palmyra. The man they called the Lion of the Sun.

  PART THREE

  Vir Perfectissimus (The East, Summer-Autumn AD260)

  'You know well that you have not kept your oaths to me.'

  Euripides, Medea, 495

  Hidden in the unlit colonnade, Ballista waited. It was the last hours of the night, some time after the start of the fourth watch. Away from the palace to the south, across the open space of the citadel, he could make out furtive figures in the darkened temple of the Tyche of Zeugma. Without Ballista consciously directing it, his right hand moved: first to the dagger on his right hip, freeing it an inch or so from its sheath and snapping it back, then to the sword hanging on his left, drawing it a couple of inches and pushing it home again, finally to the healing stone tied to the scabbard. What was going to happen was all bad. But he had no choice but to play his part.

  At last he heard them moving up the hill; a confused murmur of voices, the rattle of weapons, no attempt at concealment. As the first of them came through the gate, the torches they carried flickered through the leaves of the fruit trees. Snatches of boisterous, rough voices reached Ballista. The men emerged from the orchard fully armed for war — helmets, mail shirts, shields and weapons. But the column was in no order. The soldiers walked with friends from their units, talking in loose groups. The centurions present led some of them off to left and right. In no time at all, the palace was surrounded.

  There goes all hope of escape, thought Ballista. His mind had been running on slipping away on the far side of the citadel; down through the trees, over the low wall, across the roofs, saddling Pale Horse and riding west, following the route Castricius's man had shown Calgacus and the others. Of course it had been an idle thought. Even if he reached Antioch, how would he get Julia and the boys away? Come to that, what welcome would Gallienus give him in the west? He remembered entertaining a similar idea before the siege of Arete. Childish fantasies. It was time he put such things aside. Still, it was good of Castricius to have reunited him with Pale Horse and his own weapons. He touched the healing stone again.

  The ring of armed men around the palace began to chant.

  'Come out! Show yourselves! Quietus and Macrianus, come out! You cannot hide from the soldiers!'

  Nothing happened. The soldiers clashed their weapons on their shields. Their chants became impatient. Flasks of drink passed from hand to hand. One or two whistled, called out obscenities.

  This cannot go on for long, thought Ballista.

  A rectangle of orange light sprang out from the palace as a door opened.

  'Come out! Com
e out!'

  Quietus and Macrianus the Younger stepped out. There was tension in their movements, none of the usual arrogant swagger.

  Macrianus the Younger raised his right arm in an oratorical pose. The noise from the soldiers gradually fell away. Torches hissed in the night air.

  'Soldiers of Rome, what is the meaning of this? Have you forgotten your disciplina? Return to your quarters.'

  'Never! Never!' The men roared back.

  Now Quietus came forward. His arms were stretched out in entreaty. 'Remember our youth, our blameless lives. Have pity on our father's grey hairs. Do not put us in this danger. We have not asked for this. We have done nothing to deserve it.'

  A few soldiers laughed. Then, as if at an order, they all began a rhythmic chant:

  'Quietus imperator, Augustus free from all guilt, may the gods keep you. Macrianus imperator, Augustus free from all guilt, may the gods keep you.'

  Over and over, the words were chanted. Quietus and Macrianus the Younger made half-hearted gestures of unwillingness.

  From the gloom, Ballista listened and watched. He had heard that, in some Scythian tribes, a man's ritual reluctance to rule was overcome by pelting him with mud. It seemed a custom the Romans could adopt with profit.

  A new chant boomed out. 'The good faith of the soldiers, happiness!' Louder and louder it was repeated. 'Fidei militum feliciter! Fidei militum feliciter!'

  Slowly, Macrianus the Lame made his way out of the palace to stand between his sons. He raised his walking stick. The silver head of Alexander glinted. The soldiers instantly stopped chanting. The father gestured Quietus to speak.

  'Fellow soldiers, it is a heavy burden you wish to place on our shoulders. Commilitiones, you know that neither my brother nor myself has sought this honour. Yet the gods know our love for the Res Publica.'

  Quietus paused, as if in deep thought — the effect slightly spoilt by the half-smile on his weak mouth.